Planning on visiting Galveston soon? Plan on attending an SHP Open House.

Welcome

For over a century, the University of Texas Medical Branch has dedicated its efforts
toward improving the health of society - in Texas and beyond. Today the SHP offers
baccalaureate degrees in Clinical Laboratory Sciences and Respiratory Care, master's
degrees in Clinical Laboratory Sciences, Occupational Therapy, Health Professions, Nutrition & Metabolism and Physician Assistant Studies, and a professional doctorate in Physical Therapy. In addition to designing and implementing innovative
ways to deliver instruction to students at distant locations, the school continuously
explores opportunities to expand its program offerings and interprofessional learning.

Take The First Step - For more information about getting your education at UTMB,
please contact the SHP Office of Academic and Student Affairs by phone at 409.772.3030
or by email at shp.recruiting@utmb.edu.

Health Professions News

2015 SHP FunD Run coverage at Guidrynews.com

UTMB Health and the School of Health Professions on Saturday hosted the "SHP Causeway FunD Run/Walk." "This event benefits SHP student scholarships and represents a powerful investment in the future of health care for our region and state," said an announcement on the event's website, noting that the event helps provide scholarships for students in the School of Health Professions.

The event began at the Galveston County Daily News building on Teichman Road, then up the Causeway. Runners and walkers then turned around and headed back to the Newspaper's parking lot.

Physical Therapy Chair Dr. Carolyn Utsey inducted as inaugural AMC member and will serve on the Executive Committee.

The Academic Enterprise and the Provost's Office are pleased to announce the creation of the Academy of Master Clinicians (AMC), a major initiative to celebrate the contributions of our gifted clinicians across the School of Medicine, School of Nursing and School of Health Professions who epitomize the highest standards of clinical care in terms of skill, expertise, experience, compassion and efficiency.

In keeping with the vision, mission and values of UTMB, the main focus of the AMC is to recognize and promote distinction in all clinical domains by fostering excellence in patient-centered care, with a commitment to developing future leaders through the tenets of the Hippocratic oath, art of medicine, empathy, education, scientific rigor, professionalism, mentorship and collaborative team work.

The AMC will complement the mentoring and faculty development programs that presently exist through our Academy of Research Mentors and Academy of Master Teachers. Membership in the AMC will be the highest recognition for UTMB clinicians, and will be honorific and by nomination.

Dr. Steve Fisher, from UTMB SHP Physical Therapy, has his photography featured on the cover of Galveston Monthly Magazine Feb. 2015 edition. Congratulations to Dr. Fisher on such a great photo feature! See more at the link below.

On the cover...

The cover this month is a photograph titled "Crab Traps" that was taken by Steve Ross Fisher. Steve had seen the pier in this image many times. It overlooks Galveston Bay facing the island. Then one afternoon while exploring around he saw that someone had pulled up those crab traps. They were resting on the pier in a zig-zag pattern, which seemed to lead the eye to that strange spoil mound in the distance. He knew he had to come back at sunrise the next morning. He did and made some exposures, but none really seemed to work. He had to keep going back over the next couple weeks to work out the composition - and wait for an early morning low tide.

Luckily, the traps were not moved. On a very cold morning with a wintry sky things came together. He used a long exposure because he wanted that "mind's eye" view of how he remembered old crab traps on a pier when he was young. Growing up in the Houston-Galveston area, Steve learned to appreciate the spare, understated beauty of our coastal landscape. Self-taught in his approach to photography, he strives to create images that emphasize these minimalist visual qualities.

In addition to his photographic pursuits, Steve received a PhD in Rehabilitation Science from UTMB at Galveston and is currently a faculty member at UTMB. More of his work can be seen at steverossfisher.com.

Electronic Activity Monitors Could be Helpful in Clinical, Public Health, Rehabilitation Settings

O&P Business News, February, 2015

In a recent report, researchers found electronic activity monitors may represent a medium by which clinical behavioral interventions could be translated for widespread use in clinical, public health and rehabilitation settings.

"Electronic activity monitors are very popular, but there is little empirical research on their effectiveness. Our hope in performing this content analysis was to provide some insight to researchers and consumers about how closely these monitors adhere to standard practices in behavioral activity intervention," Elizabeth Lyons, PhD, MPH, assistant professor in the department of nutrition and metabolism at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, told O&P Business News. "Our results demonstrate that these monitors do hold quite a bit of promise... It will be interesting to see if integrating electronic activity monitors into interventions can produce more sustained increases in activity than standard procedures."

American Cancer Society awards Dr. Elizabeth Lyons $712,000 grant

During the summer semester, we hold two-weeks of pro bono clinics for people in the community with rehab needs. It was during the 2014 neuro clinic that we came to know Mr. P and his family. He'd had a spinal cord injury, and unfortunately, he was sent home with no equipment, no potential for f/u therapy, and no real instruction for the family. His team of student physical therapists did a great job of getting him on his way to better function and provided his family with a great deal of valuable education. We were able to get him plugged in to some community resources for some additional pro bono therapy and equipment assessment.

Elizabeth Lyons, PhD, MPH, was awarded a total of $712,000 for her five-year project entitled, "Self-Monitoring Activity: A Randomized Trial of Game-Oriented Applications."

Though habitual physical activity has been associated with a decrease in the risk of multiple negative health outcomes, including breast cancer recurrence and mortality, most breast cancer survivors do not engage in sufficient exercise. In this project, Dr. Lyons and her team will study a novel intervention that uses narrative-based active video games to encourage uptake and maintenance of habitual physical activity among postmenopausal women breast cancer survivors. The results of Dr. Lyons' innovative research could potentially be used on a widespread basis in clinical and community settings.

Assistant Professor in our Department of Nutrition and Metabolism, Dr. Lyons earned both her Master of Public Health and her Doctor of Philosophy in Health Behavior and Health Education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She went on to complete predoctoral and postdoctoral fellowships at the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center before joining UTMB in 2011. A member of the International Society for Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, the Obesity Society and the American Heart Association, she is on the Editorial Board for Games for Health Journal.

DPT Students Display Compassion, Concern for Their Fellow Man

During the summer semester, we hold two-weeks of pro bono clinics for people in the community with rehab needs. It was during the 2014 neuro clinic that we came to know Mr. P and his family. He'd had a spinal cord injury, and unfortunately, he was sent home with no equipment, no potential for f/u therapy, and no real instruction for the family. His team of student physical therapists did a great job of getting him on his way to better function and provided his family with a great deal of valuable education. We were able to get him plugged in to some community resources for some additional pro bono therapy and equipment assessment.

The family had told the team that they had built a ramp so that they could get him in/out of their home, and later, Dr. Seale was made aware of just how inadequate and unsafe this ramp was (see before pictures). Dr. Seale reached out to a church in Seabrook to see if they could help. Their Methodist Men Group volunteered and soon set about evaluating and making plans. They could do the work, but could not cover the materials. They asked if I could come up with maybe up to $1000 for supplies. The third year class president, Claire Conroy, was contacted and asked if the class could consider some fundraising. She promised to ask about it in their meeting later that day. They voted to provide a $1000 donation from class funds to cover the cost of the ramp materials.

SHP Faculty and Staff participate in this year's Salvation Army Angel Project

Dean Elizabeth Protas is pictured with some of the faculty and staff who participated in this year's Salvation Army Angel Project. 25 children were adopted by the group. This is the school's fourth year of supporting this worthy project.

The U.S. Department of Education awarded Kenneth J. Ottenbacher, PhD, OTR, a total of approximately $600,000 for his three-year grant entitled, "Readmission and Disability Outcomes Related to Post Acute Care."

Unplanned hospital readmission among individuals in high-cost impairment groups who receive post-acute care services is a significant health care concern. Dr. Ottenbacher and his colleagues will examine hospital readmissions for individuals in high-volume, high-cost impairment groups receiving post-acute care services to determine what factors are associated with hospital readmissions from post-acute care settings and create and test predictive models to identify people at high risk for rehospitalization.

The findings of this research will address priorities of the Affordable Care Act, assist in validating readmission as a National Quality Indicator for post-acute care settings and help reduce health care costs.

Dr. Ottenbacher is Professor and Director of Rehabilitation Sciences and Russell Shearn Moody Distinguished Chair in Neurological Rehabilitation. He is also Director of our Center for Recovery, Physical Activity and Nutrition and Associate Director of our Sealy Center on Aging. A leader in rehabilitation sciences, Dr. Ottenbacher has published more than 320 peer-reviewed articles and four books. His research has been continuously funded for nearly three decades.

Dr. Ottenbacher serves as a member of several scientific societies, such as the American Heart Association, American Geriatrics Society, Gerontology Society of America, American Occupational Therapy Association and American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. His accolades include a Presidents' Commendation Award from the American Occupational Therapy Association and American Occupational Therapy Foundation, an Outstanding Service Award from the Association of Academic Phsysiatrists and the Edward Lowman Award from the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Dr. Ottenbacher is a founding member of our Academy of Research Mentors.

Dr. Carolyn Utsey awarded $400,000 grant for School of Health Professions program

Carolyn Utsey, PT, PhD, Associate Professor and Chair for Physical Therapy, has been awarded a two-year grant from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to fund the implementation of the School of Health Professions' Bridge Physical Therapist Assistant to Physical Therapist program.

The roughly $400,000 Minority Health Research and Education Grant Program award will help enable the SHP to admit and retain two culturally diverse student cohorts for the Bridge PTA to DPT program, consisting of 20 students in 2015 and 24 in 2016. Other SHP goals for this project include completing online course development tools, developing key clinical education sites and formalizing a consortium of Texas PT Education Programs to offer a Bridge curriculum on campuses beyond UTMB.

Dr. Utsey received her Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Baylor University, then went on to earn a Physical Therapy certificate from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School and both a Master of Education in Allied Health Education and a Doctor of Philosophy in Educational Psychology from the University of Houston. Throughout her career, she has received more than a dozen educational grants. In 2010, she won the prestigious William Gould Memorial Outstanding Physical Therapy Faculty Award from the Texas Physical Therapy Association.

Congratulations to Dr. Utsey and her SHP colleagues for this outstanding achievement.

Faculty Development (UTMB Faculty Affairs) - The Faculty Development page contains sections of information pertaining to faculty development at UTMB, technology development, and development information for individual schools.

Media Authorization Form - can be used to obtain the appropriate permissions when using a patient, employee or student name and/or image in a promotional project, such as student or employee recruitment or fundraising.

Education Technology Information

Microsoft Lync - Lync will help you communicate to other faculty, students or the UTMB community via online conferencing, IM, and much more! This page contains information, installs, video tutorials and documents for Lync at UTMB. This includes both Windows and Mac versions.

Blackboard - This page contains announcements, information and more for UTMB Blackboard. Including the latest upgrades!

SoftChalk Cloud - SoftChalk Cloud is an eLearning content authoring tool in the cloud which allows you to develop learning modules and host your content. SoftChalk lets you take content you already have (Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, and PDFs), combine it with resources from the web (such as video) and turn it into easy-to-navigate, professional, web-based modules for online learning. SoftChalk automatically generates mobile-friendly content so your eLearning content works anywhere.

Respondus - This contains the latest exam building software, lockdown browser and additional help info for Respondus.

TurningPoint 5 - Download Instructions - This document will gives instructions for downloading and running TurningPoint 5. Especially the Non-Install PC Version that can be put on a flash drive and used to play your presentation from any PC.